Way Back Wednesdays: The Common Denominator

When I figured I'd take a shot at a career in photojournalism, I interned at a small newspaper in Washington DC during my last semester in college. The community oriented, bi-weekly paper was called The Common Denominator run by publisher Kathy Sinzinger. It was a small operation held together by her, maybe one or two staff writers, a couple of interns and contributions from political cartoonists and a couple of freelance photographers.

Although I had no idea what I was doing or how to cover a news event, it was a great experience. I didn't even know what a good news photo was supposed to look like because all I'd studied in my photo-j courses were Pulitzer prize winning photographs from war-torn countries and images of natural disasters. There was nothing like that going on in DC. Well maybe there was, but I wasn't covering it.

I don't remember what this particular story was about, but on April 16, 2005 I was assigned to photograph some students in a science lab at the recently re-opened McKinley Tech High School. I walked in feeling like a real photojournalist with my Canon Rebel XT and my 18-55mm kit lens. Spent about 30-40 minutes in science class and came away with this. Front page, baby. Too easy.

Seriously though, The Common Denominator and Kathy helped publish my first photo essay on boxers Lamont and Anthony Peterson and she introduced me to former head coach of Coolidge High School football, Jason Lane. And we all know how much I love Coolidge. So, shout out to community newspapers.

Way Back Wednesdays: Nation Nightclub

Remember that club over on Half St. SE? Near the Wendy's that also used to be there? Yeah, it was called Nation and while I haven't been over there in a while, I'm pretty sure it's now a parking lot for Washington Nationals' games or a building full of condos.

On February 10, 2006 Heavy Syndication artists (Broadway, Blayz, Deuce and Sabrey) all opened for Fort Minor. They even had my man Jordy (dreads) manning the merch table.

Way Back Wednesdays: Leaving Stagnation

I've photographed Deontre Blayz a number of times over the years including the afternoon of August 26, 2007 while I was working on this study of a floating torso (not really). Anyhow, Deontre Blayz just dropped a pretty dope new album entitled Leaving Stagnation. You can download it for free here.

Way Back Wednesdays: Sons of Ballers

In this edition of Way Back Wednesdays, we're going to go back to 1994. My Houston Rockets played the New York Knicks in the NBA Finals and we got absolutely no respect. Sports Illustrated had the 1994 World Champion New York Knicks commemorative magazines already printed going into game 7. I hated the mid-90s Knicks and Anthony Mason's stupid hair cuts and I loved Hakeem the Dream for making Patrick Ewing look like a chump.

In 2008, I shot a lot of Georgetown basketball. And some of those games included a couple of mid-90s Knick kids, Patrick Ewing, Jr. (Georgetown) and Anthony Mason, Jr. (St. John's). At that point, I was far enough in front of 1994 to repress my vitriol for those two names but then I had a totally different thought. I must be getting old.

Way Back Wednesdays

I was sitting on the sideline of a DeMatha vs. Good Counsel regular season football game on November 3, 2007. At the time, Kenny Tate (now a Maryland Terrapin) was DeMatha's big time player. On the field he played the positions of wide receiver and defensive back very well and on the court he gobbled up rebounds for Coach Mike Jones. I was kneeling about 35-40 yards ahead of the line of scrimmage when DeMatha's QB, Tommy Chroniger, launched a pass toward the sideline. I shifted the camera away from my face, found the ball in the air, found the man he was throwing to and got right back behind the lens. As the ball came nearer and Tate (6) and the two defensive players jumped to action, I pressed down the shutter of my Canon Rebel XT and all of its 3 frames-per-second glory. Tate came down with the football, flipped it to the referee and hi-fived a couple of teammates. I looked down at the LCD screen and hi-fived myself. It was the first action shot that I was truly proud of taking.

Time Machine Wednesdays...I mean Way Back Wednesdays

Last week I started Time Machine Wednesdays in which I would go back in my archive and find a picture from waaaaaaayyyyyy back in the early days of my illustrious photography career. In the 8 days since I've unfurled this guaranteed rating increasing series, I've already made two mistakes. One is that Time Machine Wednesdays lacks the alliteration needed for this to be remotely successful. The other mistake: today is Thursday. So I will attempt to fix both problems by now calling it Way Back Wednesdays and dating this entry as if I posted it yesterday. Enjoy!

This is the photo that started my foray into sports documentary work and my infatuation with Coolidge High School. On August 15, 2006, I took this picture in the Coolidge locker room. The previous day, I talked with then head coach Jason Lane about a photo project I wanted to do that involved documenting the team throughout the season. I showed up about 10 minutes late after getting lost and the first thing he said was, "I knew you were coming but I didn't know you were going to be 15." The gift and the curse of the baby face. I was actually 23 at the time and didn't know I would spend the next 4 football seasons at 6315 5th St. NW.

Shout out to (l-r) Greg "G-Dot" Bagley, Kobi Williams, Wayne Ouzts (sitting) and Alfred Williams.